Reply to The Heights Food Hall in Friendship Heights

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was there closing night last Saturday. The bartender's opinion was they didn't do much marketing to bring people in.[/quote]

I agree with the bartender. I very much wanted this place to succeed — to the point where I actually emailed the management, suggesting very simple, free ways to reach out to the nearby Friendship Heights Village community. I heard nothing back.  [/quote]

Can you post your suggestions? I'm very curious[/quote]

Friendship Heights Village is a very dense community of high rise condo and apartment buildings with a community center. The community center has a free monthly newsletter available in online and print versions. They could easily have contacted the center to print an article announcing their opening and listing the restaurants and describing some of their menus. Any changes could have been followed up with update articles and notices of upcoming activities. Most if not all of the nearby buildings have internal newsletters and bulletin boards.  Imagine if they had posted announcements or even offered 10% off coupons to alert residents to their presence — and welcoming them with invitations and even discounts. All of these things would have been free — or very inexpensive ways to directly reach thousands of people who live and/or work within walking distance of the Heights.

The Village Center has quite a few activities where food would be welcome, including a mini-taste of the town type of event. As far as I know neither the Heights as a whole nor individual vendors participated in any of these types of events — which would have allowed people to try out their menus — and learn more about convenient meal options just a block away from the center.

I’ve said this in at least one previous post.  I live nearby, I’m a walker, and I followed one of the restaurants that eventually opened at the Heights.  I shop frequently at Whole Foods — on the street level below the Heights, and often walk by the Heights space on the plaza where the shops are.  I’m describing this in detail to emphasize how difficult it was to know that the Heights was even open. It was hard as a pedestrian actively waiting for them to open, and would be almost impossible for someone driving by.   It took a long time —with multiple delays— for them to open, even after they set up an outside seating area.  Once they actually did open, nothing changed. The worst part is that the side of the building most easily seen by pedestrians headed towards the elevator or steps — that had been PF Chang’s front door — had a locked door, and blank windows, and looked either empty or under construction. No signage, no directory of the eating options, no menus — nothing to entice pedestrians or even to indicate that the food hall was finally open. Even a bunch of balloons attached to the door would have indicated signs of life — and maybe called attention to a tastefully framed list of food stalls and menus.

The short version is that even a pedestrian eager for their opening would have a hard time knowing that they were there —and what they offered. If they had wanted to step things up, they could have done neighborhood mailings or coupons, but the biggest issue is that they were located in a very dense neighborhood, eager for restaurant options— and never bothered to tell us that they were open — or what they sold. Each building has management, and most have condo boards or some type of residents groups.  All of these groups have been very concerned about the future of the community, the viability of the neighborhood businesses, and the continuing conveniences available in the neighborhood.  Again —as far as I know — the Heights did nothing to reach out to a relatively small number of buildings to alert them to their presence in the neighborhood.  I could say more, but the suggestions that I made when I reached out to the management by email were all free or inexpensive. I never heard back from them. I even spoke with a couple of the vendors, but there was no representative of the management on-site when I was there, and I was referred to the website for contact info.

If the Heights were still open, I would have been purchasing a ton of takeout to celebrate this Labor Day weekend. Oh well.

I do have other criticisms, but all of them would have been pretty easy to address — if the Heights management had simply made some very basic, inexpensive efforts to reach out to a large, nearby community hungry for varied eating options.

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